Recently, electronic gadgets for sound modification on electric guitars have become very popular. Not only are there hundreds of electronic gadget boxes on the market, but older models are constantly being redesigned and reevaluated. Consumers of these electronic gadgets generally purchase ones which produce the sound modifications they desire after evaluating the effects on a mechanical, electronic and sonic basis. The gadgets are purchased to do such things as change the sound of the guitar, add harmony lines, create echoes, multiply the sound of one instrument into two, and many more musical effects. These special effects devices offer a number of benefits to the musician. Musicians can create sounds which were previously obtainable only in recording studios. For example, a musician may record a solo recording on one tape track, then rewind the tape in a recording studio then put down another identical solo recording, thereby producing a fuller sound. Techniques like this now exist with the use of an electronic box which produces the effect within a guitar itself.
However, there are certain things that these electronic boxes are not able to do for a musician, including making the musician sound like a famous star. Like any other aspect of a musical instrument, the effects boxes may not be just plugged in and played. Many controls and options offer nearly limitless varieties of sounds to the musicians, however, they must be utilized like any other musical instrument. Generally, this involves many hours of practice.
Furthermore, musicians are intimidated by the electronic gadgets due to their lack of knowledge of electronics and instrumentation. Sound processors, or electronic boxes, which are currently on the market may be activated by foot pedals or require a separate remote operator to control tabletop or rack mount models. In the past, these effects, although desirable to musicians, having been difficult to operate, difficult to install, and require a great deal of maintenance and attention by persons other than the musician himself.
There are two basic ways to hook effects together. Effects may be strung together one after another in a serial fashion, or effects may be connected in parallel. Most pedal boards use series connections of effects. By mixing the outputs of various effects together in parallel, the effects may have a combined sound. These connections are more complex than series connections because an additional output mixer is generally needed. In order to increase sonic flexibility, mixers and other instruments have become necessary. Moreover, connection of the effects may be put together in a series/parallel configuration, thereby including elements of both series and parallel connections. Although these various combinational possibilities can represent nearly an unlimited way of connecting the effects together for a customized sound, musicians are often confused about how to connect their effects for the best results. In the past, attempts have been made to minimize the connections necessary for these effects and the multitude of electronic boxes and gadgets to produce the desired musical sound. Digital processors have been developed to alleviate these problems, but they are only available in rack mount units, floor pedals, wireless attachments, remote accesses and MIDI converters.
Sound processing is the alteration of the characteristics of sound. Sound processing techniques are employed to create special effects. Although sound processing may produce a multitude of different effects and sounds, the ways in which sounds can be physically modified are quite limited. Basically, the effects are limited to the alteration of the sounds, frequency curve, volume, dynamics, phase or pitch. Further sound processing will add to the basic sound and qualities of echo, reverberation or additional harmonics.
The principals of sound processing are generally the same, whether the electronics are built into the amplifier, or whether they are in the form of separate effects units, floor pedals, ,or rack mount studio devices. Sound processing includes controlling the tone by simple treble, mid-range and base controls, sophisticated equalizers, volume and distortion effects, phasing, flanging and delay. Filters can be designed to eliminate or pass desired frequencies or bands of frequencies. These effects may be individually accessed by volume modifiers, limiters and compressors, tremelo units, noise gates, flangers and phasers, reverb units, or they may be combined together in a multi-effects unit. Recently, there has been a trend towards these larger, more flexible multi-effects units. They combine various functions in one box, where they were previously available only as separate units. The best known of the multi-effects units are made by Rowland, Yamaha, Ibanez and Korg. For example, the Rowland GM-70 GR-MIDI converter converts the guitar's performance into MIDI data that drives synthesizers, samples, sequences or any other MIDI instrument. Yamaha produces a model entitled REX 50 digital multi-effects processor which includes distortion effects, and pre-set effects which are capable of modifying sound and displaying the selected effects on an LCD display. Ibanez produces a digitally controlled processor (DCP) model PDM1 in an effects pedal configuration which gives access to multiple sounding effects.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,516,462 issued May 14, 1985 to Schulze discloses a device for controlling tremelo effects and electronic sound effects in an electric stringed instrument which includes a manipulable means for producing tremelo effects.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,484,508 issued Nov. 27, 1984 to Nourney discloses a guitar having a built-in plurality of vibratile tone generators, whose oscillations are converted into alternating current by electroacoustic transducers. The guitar is provided with a control circuit feedback for a regenerative vibratory signal of progressively diminishing amplitude to maintain the oscillations of a previously activated tone generator for a selected fade-out.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,481,854 issued Nov. 13, 1984 to Dugas discloses an electrical stringed and fretted musical instrument which has at least two pick-ups and a bass boost filter means and a high boost filter means. A single joy stick control varies all of these magnitudes simultaneously. The joy stick control is located on the face of the guitar.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,305,320 issued Dec. 15, 1981 to Peavey discloses a selector switch for musical instruments such as electric guitars which are provided with a palm switch that can be manually activated so that any of the various pick-ups of the guitar can be actuated. The selector switches are located on the face of the guitar as illustrated.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,235,144 issued Nov. 25, 1980 to Lubow et al. discloses a means for controlling special musical effects in synchronism with picking a string of a stringed musical instrument by a pick. The pick includes a conductive portion and a non-conductive portion so that picking a string by the conductive portion initiates a special musical effect, while picking the string with the non-conductive portion results in the instrument operating in a conventional manner without the special musical effects.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic signal processor for an electric guitar which includes a removably mountable multi-effects signal processor which has a selection panel for accessing and selecting multiple effects.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an electronic signal processor for an electric guitar which includes a keyboard for selecting various multi-effects such that easy access to the multi-effects are available to the musician without having to use a floor pedal or having to stop playing in order to switch effects on a rack mount or table top unit. It is desirable for the keyboard to allow the signal processor to be programmed for many combinations and degrees of effects for later recall.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a single unit which is removably mountable on the guitar for programming, selecting and producing multi-effects without the fingers of the musician having to leave the strumming area, such that the musician is able to rapidly and conveniently change effects by selecting and altering the effects with his fingertips.